


Kid

by Psilent (HereThereBeFic)



Category: Steam Powered Giraffe
Genre: Brothers, Family, Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-03
Updated: 2012-10-03
Packaged: 2017-11-15 12:41:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/527430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HereThereBeFic/pseuds/Psilent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As first words go, they're rather befitting of a Walter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kid

**Author's Note:**

> **ETA 2015, copypasted to all SPG stories:** I just want to note that this was written before Bunny's announcement about Rabbit's gender, hence all the incorrect "he" pronouns and etc. No disrespect meant to Bunny or her character.
> 
> I have considered going through all of my old SPG stuff and switching the pronouns and other relevant details but I am (for unrelated reasons) no longer a part of the SPG fandom and don't really know what's going on with the lore, whether Rabbit's pronouns etc were retconned vs if she canonically transitioned, and I would find it very emotionally taxing to go searching for the relevant answers and then comb through my old works to fix all the details in a way that makes sense. Tbh I kind of hope no one is still _finding_ any of these stories, and I'm mostly leaving them up in case any of them happen to be somebody's old favorite or something.

It's just barely still 1896 when his little brother is powered on for the first time.

The gold-plated robot laughs, practically bouncing with sheer excitement until The Spine sets a hand on his shoulder to still him.

He doesn't understand why no one else is happy about this. He understands by now that no one is ever quite _as happy_ as _him_ about most things, but everyone seems downright _gloomy_ , which is ridiculous. Pappy keeps muttering to himself about weapons and soldiers, and he smiles and says it's nothing when he asks questions and Rabbit and The Spine nod along and repeat after him: _It's nothing, it's nothing. Don't worry about it._ So he doesn't. He doesn't understand why Pappy seems so angry at nothing and Rabbit won't go into stasis without a fight anymore and The Spine will sometimes stand by himself and hold very still and not speak for hours. But he does understand that he's about to get another brother, and he sees no reason not to be happy about that.

He ducks away and stands before his new sibling's optics, determined to be the first thing he sees when they open.

They don't. After a time, he can't help but wonder, in some small corner of his mind that doesn't listen to the rest of him, if Pappy's made a mistake.

Then the new robot starts to move. Not real, proper, walking-around-or-even-turning-his-head movement, but the movement of thrumming metal and turning gears, the movement that to automatons means _life_.

And underneath that is another sound, one that's familiar but in an inside-out sort of way.

 _He'll be like you,_ Pappy said.

He isn't sure he'd noticed until now that his older brothers don't sound like him.

But this new one does, and he's suddenly excited all over again.

At last, optics snap open – and they're blue. Just like his, just like The Spine's, just like one of Rabbit's. He realizes then that he hoped they'd be blue, that he likes that all of them match at least a little bit. Family resemblance.

But the new bot's eyes don't look right - they don't focus on anything, even as he cranes his neck and turns his head almost sideways, swiveling it this way and that and clearly seeking them out by sound if nothing else.

"Something is wrong."

As first words go, they're rather befitting of a Walter.

-

His new brother needs _glasses_. He thinks it's all very funny. So does Rabbit.

So does The Spine, but he pretends not to, of course.

It has something to do with the effect of his core on the pathways leading to his optics. They can't process the world unfiltered.

Pappy spends a week crafting a pair of tiny transparent filters, laced through with blue matter in a form close enough to glass that humans probably can't tell the difference. He can. There's a haze around them that looks like energy and life and thought, and every so often a blue spark spits out the side to lick at the wire frames. (The humans can see the sparks, at least.)

But he can see his brother's eyes perfectly clearly through the lenses, and he tells him to keep his optics shuttered when Pappy puts them on him because he still wants to be the first thing he sees. The Spine was the first thing he saw, and Rabbit was the first thing The Spine saw. He wants to be the first thing _somebody_ sees. And he figures it's part of his job, now that he's a big brother.

He greets the new robot with a smile and a wave, and receives smaller, more timid versions of the same in return.

"Hi there! I'm the one who's been talking to you all this time. Well, mostly. Pappy talks a lot while he works, and Rabbit talks a lot to everyone, and The Spine doesn't always talk much but he kind of talks with his face so now you can hear him, too."

And the whole time he speaks, his brother just _looks_ at him. People usually get distracted or, by the fifth or sixth sentence, suddenly remember something that urgently requires them to be elsewhere. The new automaton swivels his head back and forth as his brothers and creator are pointed out, studying each for the few split seconds needed to catalogue them - but he always swings right back around to watch him.

Smiling brightly, he drags his brother off for a tour, idly answering Pappy's order to be careful and trying to remember how The Spine and Rabbit explained things to _him_ so he can find better, more interesting ways to do it.

-

Names are funny things. He has several, but none he really lays claim to. Rabbit's current favorite way of getting his attention is _Hey! Kablooie!_

He doesn't think overmuch about most of the various labels that are applied to him.

 _Kid,_ though, is perhaps the one he is the least fond of. From strangers it's cold and condescending; from his older brothers it's a show of authority.

They've started calling the new bot Hatch, after the swinging door in his chest left over from his days as a stove. Days, he says, that he can remember.

"I wasn't awake then," he says, frowning as much as he can. Hatch doesn't frown often, and he stands straighter, looks sharper - attention narrowed. "I wasn't awake," Hatch repeats, softly. "But I remember. I remember... not being awake."

He listens to his brother's voice - confused, sad, and _frightened_ \- and thinks about when he was still very young, a few weeks old, and he fell and his arm bent wrong and stuck and snapped and _broke_ and he'd never been more afraid in his short life and The Spine picked him up and said _Don't worry, kid, I've got you_ and that was perhaps the one time he didn't mind so much being called _kid_. Not a threat or an aggravated growl or a reminder of rank, but a promise that he would be taken care of by someone older and stronger and who was supposed to look out for him.

He puts a hand on Hatch's shoulder and says softly, "Don't worry, kid! You're awake _now_ , and we got the whole world to explore."

And Hatch smiles.

-

War is hell.

He tries desperately to find anything, any _one_ thing, however small, that can be deemed _fun -_ but there is fire and pain and metal death and screaming _everywhere_ and Rabbit found a _human being_ fused into one of the elephants and he just wants to go _home;_ they all want to go home.

He isn't allowed near Hatch - none of them are, no one is. Hatch fires bullets and flames and mortar shells and heaving, rolling waves of blue matter itself, spewing from the temporarily-permanently-opened door in his chest as he runs ahead of the rest of them, clearing the worst of the opposing side.

wrong wrong wrong wrong _wrong_

He's supposed to protect him, _look out for him_ , not hide behind him. But orders are orders and they are suddenly soldiers so orders are what they have to follow.

After the war, the three days that stretched into forever and should never have happened, when the last of the elephants has fallen and Delilah has laid down to rest, he runs to his brother and rips at the constraints holding his chest open. His fingers are claws now and this is the only time he has been glad of it.

Blue matter hits him in concentrated bursts, roiling out from Hatch's power core as the terrified bot stumbles backwards, trying to push him away, babbling that it's not safe, that he doesn't understand and can't control and _please,_ _ **please**_ _don't let me hurt you -_

But the energy hits him and fizzles off and warps into the void and he slams the door shut with a _**clang**_ and pulls his little brother into a tight hug and doesn't let go.

-

Time passes. Names come and go. He becomes The Jon and Hatch becomes Hatchworth, though The Jon usually sticks to the old name. Or Hatchy. It just sounds more fun.

The Jon develops a great love of sandwiches, which is almost entirely his brother's fault. No one is sure where the food is coming from, least of all Hatchy, but mostly they're all just happy it isn't leftover ammo instead. This in mind, everyone is more or less willing to put up with The Jon's sudden addiction.

They differ slightly on the matter of quesadillas. The Jon insists that they're a _kind_ of sandwich, and Hatchworth agrees to a point - but it is apparent that whatever mechanism is responsible for the creation of the food does _not_. They compromise. Hatchy learns to make quesadillas by hand, at which point he discovers that he has _missed_ cooking. This isn't exactly the same, of course. But it's close enough, and they sit in the kitchen for hours combining various items - feeding them to koi when The Jon isn't up to eating or, much more commonly, simply wants to get the fish's opinion.

Eventually, Hatchworth can make most dishes known to man.

Shortly after this, he can make them fit for human consumption.

-

Time passes. The world goes to war, and so do the Walter Bots and Peter Walter III.

It's hell all over again, but they are at least kept away from the front lines this time. Search and rescue. Helping people. They can do that. There is Peter to worry about, of course, and one of them takes time every day to find out where he is.

There is talk of sending Hatchworth out ahead of the men in combat, but in the end his method of fighting is deemed too unstable.

The Jon shakes with happiness, blind gratitude, wishing strangely for a deity to send his sudden prayers of thanks to.

They come home. The Spine's eyes are green now, but so is one of Rabbit's, so that's all right.

-

No one really minds when he and Hatchworth go off on their own. There's generally a sense of relief, and occasionally one of doors being barricaded in their immediate absence. Strange things tend to happen around them.

One afternoon, as they lie back in the grass watching the clouds darken with the threat of evening, something in The Jon's system jolts. He sits bolt upright and clutches briefly at his chest, optics sparking and opened wide.

Hatchworth doesn't move. "Again?"

"I think I have the hiccups."

"That doesn't make any sense," Hatchworth says, and The Jon just looks at him, and they both burst out laughing while the trees melt into the ground around them and the sky brightens to a red glow, birds swimming through the thick paste and leaving trails of the blue underneath streaking behind them.

The Jon smiles. "I could write a song about that."

"You could write a song about a rock."

"I _did_ write a song about a rock."

"Yeah, and if you'd given it another week maybe you could have written a _good_ song about a rock."

The Jon sticks his tongue out at him and lies back down, watching the clouds drip white steam into the horizon line. "I bet I _could_ write a song," he says, slowly - thoughtfully. "About - about all the stuff that happens like this. To us. And we'd be the only ones who knew what it meant."

Hatchworth shrugs. "Go for it."

"Maybe someday."

-

It wasn't Hatchy's _fault,_ the badgers, it really wasn't, he didn't _mean_ to - but no one will listen to The Jon. All the humans are wearing the sort of serious looks that mean they've forgotten he's forty-two years old and a veteran and a scientific anomaly and are mentally shooing him away to the children's table. Normally, he wouldn't mind.

But they're talking about Hatchworth and blue matter and a fracture and a _vault_ , and no one will answer any questions and he's starting to get scared and irritated, two things he's bad at being.

 _Safety precautions_ , they say, as Peter II opens the doors and Peter III walks Hatchworth inside.

 _We'll figure it out,_ they promise, as Rabbit, The Spine, and The Jon are allowed to hug him goodbye. Peter and Peter hug him, too. The Jon hugs him twice. He doesn't know why, but he wants to be the last.

 _Soon,_ they swear, as the doors close on The Jon's only little brother.

(There are others, of course - dozens of Walter Automatons that came after Hatchworth, but Hatchworth was the first after the band; Hatchworth fought in the Weekend War - and there is something between the four of them that isn't the same with the bots that came after that, no matter how much The Jon loves them.)

-

They can hear each other through the doors. They shouldn't be able to. No one else can.

Peter II explains it away as a radio frequency that only the two of them can access, probably something to do with blue matter and their cores. He seems distracted.

It doesn't feel like radio. The Jon can hear his brother's _voice_ , out loud, as if he were standing right beside him.

The Jon goes down to speak with him every day.

-

Usually, Hatchworth sounds bored. Perhaps frustrated.

One day, The Jon asks him how he's doing and he stops halfway through his answer and starts over and he sounds small and frightened and The Jon hates the doors between them more than he has ever hated anything.

"They said it was leaking," Hatchworth says. "The blue matter. I didn't really worry about it. But it's getting worse. I can feel it. Strange things are happening. I don't... They're not things you'd want to write songs about."

He won't say he's scared. He never has. There are a lot of things he says with his face _(family resemblance)_ and The Jon can't hear those things now, but he knows what Hatchworth's voice is supposed to sound like and this isn't it.

He leans on the door, palm open against it. "It's okay, kid. We'll getcha out of there."

-

The world goes back to war.

-

He knows most of his letters don't reach home. Many people's don't, and no one is going to prioritize his.

So he puts all the important stuff into each and every one, hoping that _one_ of them will find its way to Walter Manor.

He gets a few replies. Love and gratitude and luck. No one ever answers his questions about Hatchworth. There are vague implications that they are all very busy.

-

It has been three years, eleven months, and six days since The Jon spoke to him. Since anybody spoke to him.

The darkness is a tangible thing, infused with blue matter, coiling and writhing at the edges of the room and creeping in close like smoke. He has considered removing his glasses exactly three hundred and six times, and each time he has been struck with the thought that if he changes his mind he may not be able to find them again. He sits as still as possible and thinks idly that maybe some of the darkness is shaped like interesting things.

It mostly just looks like snakes, at the moment.

And then, as though it's been five minutes -

"Hatchworth?"

He blinks. Looks around to make sure The Jon isn't standing there, because that would mean this was a blue matter mirage.

He isn't.

"Hatchy, are you - ... Are you still there?"

The Jon doesn't sound right. He sounds - sad, tired, old and young at once.

Hatchworth sits up straighter without knowing why. "Yes."

Laughter. It bites at the room like a live wire. The darkness scatters a bit at his feet. "Oh, thank goodness! I mean, not that - you're still in there, but that you're still... _in_ _there._ "

"I know what you meant, Jon."

For a few seconds, everything is quiet, and he wonders with the sort of faint alarm that is all he can allow himself if he has imagined the whole thing.

And then The Jon says, "We're back." And his voice is small and tight and wobbling and the words are good but Hatchworth doesn't like where this is going at all.

Another pause.

Voice tiny, crumpled, folded up into itself: "Pappy died."

Those faint alarm bells again, immediately quashed by his first line of defense - pure denial. Someone would have -

No one could have told him but The Jon, and The Jon was at war.

He blinks again. Processes the information. Watches the darkness shift and whirl in a far corner, shape of a man, memorizes its composition so he can ignore everything it does.

The Jon is being quiet again.

"The Jon?"

"I'm sorry!" The words are barked with a sob, and for the first time in a long time Hatchworth stands up and _moves_.

When they put him in here, he stayed where they left him. Moved around the room to keep his joints from sticking, but always settled back where they put him. The monotony helped. When the blue matter started twisting his surroundings he planted himself and stayed put. Sanity over joints.

It has never even occurred to him to move closer to the door - it wouldn't help, it wouldn't get him out any sooner (or at all), it wouldn't give him any more access to the world outside.

Now he stands and moves swiftly through the darkness, shoving it aside, and presses against the door, hands splayed on the metal.

"I'm s-sOrRy," The Jon repeats, vocals starting to glitch properly now, voice distorting. "I'm SOrrY yOu're st-sTUck in hHHere and I'mM ssSsorry I l-l- _left_!" he wails. "AnD I'm sssssorry about - abOUt - aBoUt PAppy, HatchY, and I'M - I'm - I'm soRry, I'm so ssSSorry I cAaaAn't h-help y-YouUuU-"

"It's okay," Hatchworth says quietly - _desperately_ , and the emotion takes him aback. "It's okay, The Jon. It's not your fault."

"But I'm yOuR big br-br-brOTHer; I'm sssSUPposed to pr-protect yOu and I c- I cA- I _can't_!"

"Jon," Hatchworth says, dismay beginning to creep into him despite all his safeguards. He takes a moment to calm himself, to insure his own voice won't hitch or twist or screech up and down like a broken accordion the way The Jon's is doing because it's _scaring_ _him_ and he doesn't want to scare his brother. "It's all right, I promise. I'm... okay. You're okay. It's not your fault."

They have nothing to talk about. The Jon has been at war and Hatchworth has been in the vault.

In the end, he asks The Jon to sing to him. Something old.

The Jon goes into stasis on the other side of the door. Hatchworth turns and sits against it, shutting his eyes, listening fruitlessly for the sounds of his brother's body, the sounds that mean _life_. The rolling emptiness of the void, the hum of the blue matter. He knows he will hear nothing - the voice is all that ever comes through.

He stays up anyway. It feels like a vigil.

-

It's Christmas, 1984.

His brothers are touring again, have been for a few years. The Jon tripped over himself apologizing until Hatchworth finally had to laugh, telling him that one of them being trapped shouldn't mean they both are.

It's Christmas.

He sits in the dark and closes his eyes and is very carefully not jealous. He allows himself to engage in an activity he deemed stupid and dangerous a long time ago:

He wishes.

He wishes he were someone else. Somewhere else. Anyone, anywhere.

Though preferably, he adds, _himself,_ or something close to it and in better repair, on the other side of this door.

Himself, but not. Something... better. Whole. Not cracked down the middle, broken and dangerous, locked away for the safety of the outside world. Maybe not a robot at all. That's where the trouble started. He was never meant to be a robot. He was meant to make food. To warm a room. To make people happy.

He almost wishes himself back to a stove, but stops. He does, despite himself, quite enjoy sentience.

He wishes, then, simply for happier times. For days spent experimenting in the kitchen with The Jon, arguing sandwiches versus quesadillas and not really meaning it.

Blue matter hisses outward from his core and flashes dark and twists away.

He wishes...

-

It's December 26th, 1984. A baby is born.

-

In January of 2010 (he's been keeping track), The Jon tells him that Peter Walter VI (he's been keeping track of that, too. Time can be marked almost as effectively in Peter Walters as it can be in years.) is in the middle of an epiphany.

"He's gonna get you out, Hatchy!"

Hatchworth smiles, though he isn't sure why, as his brother can't see it and it is entirely for his benefit. "That's great," he says.

"Really, Hatchy. He is. I promise."

And that hurts. Because Peter II promised. Peter III promised. The Jon has never broken a promise to him and now he's doomed one from the start.

But The Jon doesn't know that yet. So Hatchworth tries to sound happy. "That's _great_."

-

February 11th.

The doors open. The darkness scatters, blue sparks bouncing down the halls and it doesn't matter because The Jon is the only one there.

They stand and stare at each other – suddenly, absurdly, shy. The Jon looks different. Hatchworth is pretty sure he doesn't.

And then The Jon is hugging him, crying and laughing and not letting go until Hatchworth remembers that he is supposed to reciprocate.

The Jon steps away from him, smiling wider than he ought to be able to. "I'm supposed to take you to the lab. Don't worry, kid. Peter's gonna fix you up."

-

Time passes.

The Jon is restless. He has traveled for war and for music, for the people of Kazooland when they needed him - for a variety of reasons, really, but never for himself.

In the end, it is painfully clear: He wants to explore. He _needs_ to.

The emotion of the situation is somewhat offset and at the same time sharply increased by the necessary business-related decisions. Steam Powered Giraffe is doing well, and the loss of a robot is going to hit them hard.

Hatchworth doesn't so much _volunteer_ as gradually realize everyone is turning to look at him.

The upgrades are easy enough, and the sudden ability to do what The Jon does - to sing, to play, to create _music_... It's strange, and nearly overwhelming, but he takes to it quickly enough.

And then Sam decides he's going with The Jon.

Everyone is surprised - perhaps even Sam himself, if the look on his face is anything to go by.

If anyone was going to volunteer, Hatchworth has to admit he would have expected it to be Michael Reed. Hatchworth and The Jon are brothers but Michael and The Jon are best friends, have been since Michael was old enough to blink at him. Hatchworth enjoyed listening to the stories of Michael growing up, his adventures with The Jon - enjoyed hearing The Jon sound _happy_ on the other side of that door.

But Michael is, above all else, a musician. He loves music. He loves creating it and sharing it and for him to go any substantial amount of time without being able to do that is almost inconceivable.

He hugs The Jon goodbye and makes him promise an absurd number of letters each week. The Jon readily agrees.

Farewells are traded all around. A couple of half-hesitant handshakes turn into eyerolls and proper hugs. Everyone pretends they've suddenly developed allergies, even the robots.

The Jon hugs Hatchworth last, and Hatchworth notes the rigid limbs, held stiff to prevent shaking.

"Don't worry about us," he says quietly, smiling not-quite-entirely for his brother's benefit. "You got the whole world to explore."


End file.
